


Ignite Your Bones

by orphan_account



Series: Fix You Series [7]
Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, F/M, Fire, Immolation, Non-Canon Relationship, Telepathic Bondage, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 10:48:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20172988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Michael reaps what he's sown.





	Ignite Your Bones

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! This is the last instalment of this series. Thank you for sticking with me through this ride. I appreciate your continued love and support. I'm excited to start on new works for this pairing. 
> 
> The characters and plot of American Horror Story: Apocalypse belong the Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. The title belongs to Cold Play's "Fix You."
> 
> All mistakes are my own. WARNING this is an unrealistic depiction of fire play.

Sleep paralysis is the best term to describe the sensation of coming back into her body. Mallory’s awake and aware, but for the first ten minutes of consciousness she’s unable move. Her cheeks itch with drying tears as her eyes dart around rapidly in panic.

The numbness recedes in her feet first. She spends a handful of seconds trying to wiggle her toes before flexing her feet and calves. Several more moments pass before she’s able to roll herself off of the bed and onto the floor. The burn of the carpet under her hands and knees is invigorating.

She leaves Michael’s flower mangled and broken on the floor. Fuck his apology. The fool couldn’t even do the job properly. Burning her soul would have been a mercy. He’d given her a sweet glimpse of oblivion and then left her body to regenerate.

If he’s determined to cling to prophecy, she’ll give him fire.

\-- 

Mallory leaves no trace of herself or Michael when she leaves the Coven.

Madison’s certain that she wasn’t required to pay for her own clothes when she arrived at Miss Robichaux’s home for wayward dykes.

\--

Ms. Mead is careful with her questions. She knows it wasn’t the same as with the others. Knows Michael didn’t take pleasure in killing Mallory. He hears her grumbling that she should never have given him free reign of the internet when he was younger. She should have restricted his browsing to gay porn only. Dick, she feels, is far less problematic. Michael restrains an eye roll. _If she only knew_.

He’s confused when they pass the sign for New Orleans’ city limits. At his look, Ms. Mead explains that she’s joined a black mass buy and sell group on Facebook and made contact with a Satanist in California. She and this Madeline woman started talking about the best candle emporiums on the west and east coasts and, most importantly, about Michael.

Madeline’s invited them out to Los Angeles to meet a group of devotees who have all sold their souls to his father. Michael’s relieved. These people could be more useful than the Warlock Council. He doesn’t think he could seduce anybody right now if he wanted to. He feels hollowed out; empty. 

\--

Madeline takes to him immediately. She’s overjoyed to be in the presence of Satan’s son. She introduces him and Ms. Mead to her congregation before taking them on a shopping spree on Rodeo Drive. Michael left most of his clothing behind in Louisiana. Apparently, wearing the same three pairs of pants and scuffed shoes is unbecoming to a king of the new world.

Despite having access to Madeline’s limitless credit card, Michael doesn’t indulge his preference for ladies undergarments. It feels wrong to embrace that part of himself when Mallory had been so accepting. He keeps the yellow pair of panties she gave him at the bottom of the backpack he took with him from Robichaux’s. He doesn’t ever take them out, certain that the ghost of her still lingers on the fabric.

Makeup becomes a new outlet for his femininity. He wanders into a Sephora one day and lets the girls at the makeover counter have their way with him. They show him how to accent his eyes and contour his face.

Having long hair is also an adjustment. Ms. Mead had despaired that first night when he’d thrown himself into her car covered in mud and full of twigs and burs. She’d threatened to cut it all off when they reached a motel. The thought of her shearing his locks had Michael losing control. He'd shown her his true face in a fit of rage. Afterward, Ms. Mead was quick to accept his lie that he just really liked how his hair looked. The real reason that Michael wanted to keep it was pathetic. On his long hike, he'd soothed himself by tangling his fingers in the strands and imagining that it was Mallory pulling at them. He still does it when sleep is hard to find. 

It’s been nine months since he smothered his Mallory like a coward. Michael's been keeping himself busy by finalizing plans at Kineros. Madeline put him in touch with the coked-up nerds who run the place two months ago. Jeff and Mutt seem to think that nuclear bombs are the answer to his prophecy and the end of the world.

Michael agrees that a nuclear winter is an efficient way to end humanity. However, he can’t help but feel that it’s a little inelegant. He’s always wanted to end the world with magic. When he closes his eyes, he imagines conjuring sixty-foot waves, torching forests and leveling entire cities. He’s not strong enough to do it himself, but with the warlocks on his side and the witches under his thumb it might have been possible. Michael's learning to let go of his dream. Mallory was an important lesson in the dangers of attachment.

As a gesture of acceptance, he’s agreed to meet Jeff and Mutt at Kineros’ airplane hangar this evening to review their progress on the horse-drawn carriage that will serve as his transportation after the bombs drop. 

\--

A niggling doubt starts in Michael’s gut when Jeff and Mutt stutter for the second time in their explanation of the gaskets they used to seal the carriage doors. He realizes suddenly that Jeff is sweating under the bangs of his atrocious bowl cut. “What? What’s going on?” he says, cutting into their report abruptly.

The two idiots exchange a nervous look. Mutt opens and closes his mouth unattractively like a fish before Jeff elbows him in the gut. Losing patience, Michael constricts their throats with a flick of his hand. “Spit it out,” he demands. A rush of words explode from their mouths. Michael hears nothing after ‘this hot angry chick.’

Unease crawls up his spine. He releases the nit-wits and spins around on the heels of his red-bottom shoes, scanning the hangar.

Time seems to slow when she materializes from the shadows. Michael’s bones feel heavy; weighted down. The sight of her familiar face guts him all over again. “Mallory,” he whispers, “is it really you?” 

Black painted lips quirk up into a humorless smile. “Did you miss me, baby?”

Shock fades into fear as Michael registers the full power of her aura. “It was you. You’re the Supreme.” Wonderment and grief mingle in his tone.

Mallory heaves a sigh and snaps her fingers, breaking Mutt and Jeff’s necks. Michael pointedly doesn't flinch at the thud of their lifeless bodies on the cement floor. 

“Yes, Michael. I’m the Supreme," Mallory tells him. "If you had paid attention instead of being such a greedy whore, you might have noticed the range of my powers sooner."

Her callous reference to their time together has a pang starting behind Michael's ribs. “Don’t flatter yourself, if I missed anything it was because you weren’t that impressive,” he snarls, hurt.

Circling closer, Mallory runs a finger along a welding tank. “You certainly thought I was impressive when I was milking your prostate.” Michael frowns. She’s got him there and she knows it if her smirk is anything to go by. “Beginners luck,” he tries.

“Oh?” Mallory asks, tone curious. “Have you gained more experience since then?”

Michael wants to throw himself at her feet and confess his devotion to her memory. Instead, he tilts his head imperiously and scoffs, “I don’t see how that’s any of your business. You were dead. And evidently, a lying bitch.”

Mallory circles around to stand in front of him now. Michael swallows, willing himself to make eye contact. Brown eyes hold his gaze as a small hand strokes his long hair away from his face. He tries not to shiver. “My poor, scared little boy,” she croons, “too evil to be content with what you had, yet too sentimental to destroy it entirely.”

Rage at her insight into his conflict and self-loathing twists his expression. A ringed hand catches Mallory's wrist. “Just because you once shared my affections does not give you the same permissions now.”

Cruel eyes harden into smoky quartz. “Shared,” she sneers, “I owned your ass, you insufferable twat. The only thing I shared was your loyalty.” Darkness bleeds from her pupils.

Michael’s whipped off of his feet and flung five feet to the right. The impact with the back of the black carriage shatters his cheekbone and knocks the air from his lungs. Before he can even think about moving, his arms and legs shoot outward in an X formation. Shadows solidify in his peripheral vision. Grasping hands rip and tear the clothing from his back. 

\--

A wave of Mallory’s hand disintegrates the spirits she’d called from the in-between. When she was travelling around the country, learning from other practitioners and staying under Michael and Cordelia's radars, she’d discovered that the power of Tempus Infinituum gives her access to purgatory. Trapped in a snarl in the weft of time, the souls Mallory found there were happy to do her bidding if it meant escape from the monotony of limbo.

The sight of Michael, looking every inch his Outpost self, is a knife to her blackened heart. She let him live. She brokered his trust and welcomed him into her body and he still strayed into darkness. Mallory’s come to the conclusion that time is a repeating loop. She can manipulate the threads of the tapestry, but the picture works out to be the same in the end. 

Why should she continue on a fruitless quest? She’s done being fate’s bitch.

Clenching her jaw, Mallory unclips the black braided whip from the holster around her hips. A flick of her wrist has it unfurling at her feet. She plants her heeled boots into the floor and lets the whip fly. The tip snaps in the air a few inches from Michael’s left ear. She relishes his flinch. He’s regained his breath and is ranting about ripping her heart from her chest. Mallory tunes him out.

A flash of her eyes has the nylon popper at the end of the bullwhip catching fire. The dancing blue flame reminds her of the butterflies she’d once made from rose petals. She locks the image away.

Bending her knees slightly, Mallory starts throwing the whip at Michael’s back. The smell of burning flesh assaults her nose before Michael’s screams echo throughout the space. The building’s acoustics are superb.

Extend—_crack_—flex. Rinse, repeat. The repetitive motion of her forearm is soothing. Skin is split and cauterized before blood can ooze down his back. Burns turn from white to pink to red.

By the time her arm tires out, Michael’s clinging to consciousness by his fingernails. His head lolls uncomfortably on his neck. Mallory's last swing catches the tips of his long hair. Michael’s head and body are consumed by flame in a matter of seconds. The animal sound of his wailing cuts off abruptly.

Fat crackles and bones warp with a terrible snap.

Mallory watches her lover burn and mourns the boy who once used rhymes to remember how to tie his shoes. Mourns the young man who submitted to her whims and the devil who promised her paradise.

Leather hits the floor with a dull thump.

Drawn to the light, Mallory moves toward the burning form of the Antichrist and enfolds him in her arms.

When nothing but ash remains, they rise anew. Michael blinks soot from his lashes and looks at her with fresh eyes. Mallory’s smile is tender. “Together,” she breathes. "We'll end it together or not at all." 


End file.
